- Charlotte Mason is all about spreading a feast of ideas.
How do you fit it all in?
Let's talk about it.
(upbeat music)
Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason Podcast.
I'm Sonya Shafer.
My friend and co-worker Laura Pitney is joining me
to talk about all of those wonderful enrichment subjects.
So here's the question to discuss today.
- Let's hear it.
- [Sonya] "There are so many enriching subjects
"in a Charlotte Mason approach.
"Picture study, music study, nature study, poetry,
"handcrafts, art instruction, Shakespeare,
"hymn singing, and more.
"It seems like so much to try to fit into my schedule.
"How can I juggle all of those subjects
"and actually get them done?"
- That's a great question.
I feel like there's two parts to this question.
- Okay.
- I feel like there's the people that are just starting out
that feel very overwhelmed with the idea
of all of this feast that they should be doing.
Then I feel like the second part is the families
with older children that don't have time for the enrichments
because they feel like they need to do these other important
subjects because they're their high school workload.
So there's this struggle that I see
between these two types of situations.
The beginners just getting their feet wet,
really wanting to do well with the enrichment subjects
but feel kinda overwhelmed and then, again,
with the older children
that it's just like time is so important and it's hard.
It's like the enrichment's are one of the first things
to fall all of the list.
So, for the newbies,
or the people just starting out,
one thing I really recommend
is maybe just to pick one a day to do.
Not all 150 of them.
- Is what it feels like. - No.
(laughing)
- But just one a day.
So to say, "Okay, Monday's we're gonna do art study.
"And Tuesday's we're gonna sing our hymn together."
- And it really only takes-- - Yeah.
- I mean, picture study takes five or 10 minutes.
That's it. - Right, right.
- And I think you can do five or 10 minutes.
And singing the hymn will take three minutes or so.
I think that can be done.
- Right, and I think people realize that it can be done,
they're just scared to get started in it
because it seems overwhelming.
So it's just like anything else.
Let's commit to it, let's do it
and let's get comfortable in it and then add more.
So you're not necessarily adding all 30 of them day one,
you're sprinkling 'em throughout the week
and just little touches. - And you can even
layer them in if it still seems overwhelming.
You could say, "Okay,
"the first two weeks of the school year
"I'm just gonna get picture study established
"on my Monday's."
And don't worry about the rest.
And then third week, "Okay, we're gonna keep picture study,
"now we'll bring in the hymn singing."
If you have to take a term
to get up to full speed do it. - Right, right.
I just feel like there's this pressure
that we have to do it all day one.
And the enrichment studies or those subjects,
I feel like there's a lot of margin there.
- Yes. - And you want to do it,
and you're gonna do it well
but it's okay to take your time to do them well
and to do them efficiently and not to feel overwhelmed.
So I say that as an encouragement
that it doesn't have to look like the textbook definition
of what enrichment should be like.
Because we don't want it to be that way anyway.
We want it to be a natural flow in the school day,
or a break in the school day.
And I think that's key,
especially for the new moms starting out.
That it adds variety in your day.
It helps break up the way you're using your mind,
it helps not fatigue the children.
So honestly, I use 'em as fillers.
Not to undermine the importance of 'em,
but they are staples in my day that help fuel us forward
to the different subjects that require full concentration
or we're gonna read and then we're gonna go sing our hymn.
And then we may read a geography book
and then we're gonna do art study.
You know, just using it as a tool to help break up your day.
There's a beauty in that as well.
- Absolutely, that was the exact word that came to my mind.
That is the beauty of those enrichment subjects.
They are designed so they're very easy to do,
but they use that other part of your brain.
And so if you can tuck them into your schedule
to help diversify, let's say, your daily schedule.
The other thing you can do
is a lot of them lend themselves well
to afternoon occupations.
If you want to,
once you have the formal lessons done by lunchtime,
we still want the kids to be doing profitable things
not sitting on the couch eating bonbons all afternoon.
- Which is tempting.
Which is tempting. - True.
So to encourage them to keep using their time profitably
in the afternoon you can bring in handcrafts,
you can bring in music study or some of those other things.
- Right.
So one thing that we're doing right now in our homeschool
is we actually are taking one afternoon to do most of them.
So in someways that's a time saver
because it shortens our other school days.
And I say that not to diminish the purpose of 'em
but art study, and music study,
and even the allotted time for nature study
I know that I have a whole afternoon set aside
to accomplish those beautiful things.
Now I do use our hymn and our scripture verse
and things like that daily as a--
- To break up the order. - To break up things, yeah.
But right now the way our life is
and the business of everything,
that seems to be working well.
- It's so nice that you have flexibility to do that.
- Yeah. - Use those subjects,
schedule it in a way that fits your family.
- Right. - That's beautiful.
- So the other part of the question
I feel like is a challenge.
Unfortunately when you get to the high school years
the enrichment subjects are usually one of the first things
to fall off your list.
You just feel like the other subjects
like math, reading--
- Science. - Literature, yeah.
All those bulky high school courses
just kinda trump the enrichment classes.
So I have a friend who her high schoolers
are super busy and I can relate.
And she has her lunch time
when she knows no matter where they're at in the house,
no matter which kid's are working on what subjects,
at lunch time when they come to the table,
because everybody's gotta eat,
that's when she does her enrichments.
You know sometimes she'll read their poem
or their poet biography while they're eating lunch
or when they're done with lunch, that 30 minute time block
maybe they'll put everything down and do their art study.
It's just she knows that's a staple in her day
when her high schoolers are around the whole family.
They've gotta eat.
And so for her that works well
to be able to squeeze them in
because otherwise she feels like
her high schoolers don't have time.
- I love that idea because it respects
that older student's schedule.
So often they should be doing most of their work
independently by then.
And they might be working head down
in the middle of their science reading
and suddenly you come in and say,
"Hey, let's go do picture study all together as a family."
And it just interrupts their whole time management efforts.
So to plan your schedule intentionally
at a time when we're going to be together anyway,
I know that they will be taking a break
from their other studies;
that just seems genius in that situation.
- I think that's a key point
that there's this misconception
that you as the teacher, as the parent
is having to teach all these extra subjects,
but that's not the case.
You're doing all of them if...
All of them right?
- All of them as a family.
- As a family. - Yes.
- I was just trying to think
if there's any that you would separate,
but there's not any. - You could easily do them
all together as a family.
- So the misconception that it takes so much time
to do all these enrichment subjects is not there
because all of your children your teaching together.
- So you'll save a lot of time
and most of them just take the 10 minutes
or 20 minutes at most.
So yes, it is a big time saver.
- Another concern I feel like we get a lot in our feedback
is how is this possible
when I have elementary, middle school and high school
to all be doing the same enrichment subject.
So what would you say to that?
- I would say the enrichments are topical.
Does it matter if you study Monet's art
when you're in second grade or in 10th grade?
No, it's just a topic.
And does it matter if you learn "How Great Thou Art"
in third grade or in 12th grade?
No, that's a topic.
Same things with handicrafts.
Now handcrafts,
that's a good one. - That's a hard one.
- It could be.
You can all be doing the same craft.
You could all be working on knitting, for example.
But maybe your younger ones
are just gonna be learning how to cast on.
I think that's a correct knitting term.
- Sounds good to me. (laughs)
- Okay, we'll say that.
And your older ones might be to the point
that they are just sitting there knitting a sweater
in their sleep.
You know? - Right.
- So everybody's working on the same handcraft
but you can level up or down the skill.
That's the big difference is there's skill based subjects
and topic based subjects.
The enrichments are topics.
So you can do them all together.
If there's a skill involved,
level it up or down.
Maybe which poems they choose to memorize and recite.
Younger ones can do shorter, older ones can do multiples.
So you can level up or down any skills involved
but the topics themselves lend themselves to everybody.
- Do you see that it's important to have those relationships
within your family?
Have you seen fruits of that
with your girls to where they're different ages,
even different levels even,
but yet because they're doing the common topic
that it helps form relationships?
Have you seen that? - Absolutely.
Yes, yes I have.
I'm picturing it in my mind,
I remember when they were doing
I believe it was crocheting
and my oldest one was crocheting
and my youngest was watching
and she said, "Do you want to try?"
And so my youngest climbed up in her lap
and she was showing her how
and she was trying to keep the lesson short
but every time she would say, "Do you want to quit?"
my youngest didn't want to quit.
And so she sat there for an hour.
- Oh wow.
- Just learning how to do the crochet.
- Everybody's going to be doing crochet now.
(both laughing)
Preschool, yeah.
- But you can do that with so many.
With the poetry, yes the older ones
might be learning different poems,
same poet but different poems
and so they're sharing with the youngers
that extra dimension of that poet.
So many discussions can start
because we're doing the same thing.
And picture study, what one person sees in the picture
it might not even have to do with their age,
it has maybe to do with their personality,
they pull that out and the other one says,
"Oh, I never noticed that."
And then they say something,
so a lot of interconnections
and building of relationships.
- Yeah, it's almost like it gives them
something to look forward to.
The younger ones with the older ones like anticipation,
like with the skill level or just the time
it takes to even be more observant about something.
You know?
It kinda--
- That's a great example. - It's like a team effort.
- A role model.
Yes, yes.
We're all working as a team
and it gives the youngers
an opportunity to feel respected.
One of my biggest peeves
with an age segregated approach to education
is that each age is separated from all the others
and they think only about other people their own age
and they rarely interact with all the other ages.
And they're missing out on so much.
Where this way when we regularly make time
we deliberately make time for the ages to come together,
learn together, share together, interact together,
that is going to enrich them as persons in their growth
which is the goal of education anyway.
- Right.
So I was just thinking if somebody came up to us,
to you, and were asking the question,
"So Sonya, which ones do you think I should start with?"
What would you say to that?
- It depends somewhat on your comfort level.
- Yeah.
- Picture study's very easy to do.
But maybe you're more comfortable with music.
- [Laura] Yeah, it's true.
- Music study's easy to do too.
So I would say a lot of it depends on your comfort level.
Choose one that doesn't
scare you to death. - You think you can do.
- Yes. - That makes sense.
- Maybe for a lot of us that would not be Shakespeare.
Maybe you don't wanna start with Shakespeare,
that's okay, that's fine.
And maybe poetry's not your thing either.
- Just for the record,
I said I would never do Shakespeare.
- And?
- I'm doing it now, we love it.
- Yes.
- That was just one for me that I was like,
"Uh-uh, I'm not going there."
But it's really been fun, enjoyable.
- And I wonder if some of that daring
to go ahead and try it
is because you saw success in the others
and you got those in place and it's like,
"Oh, this isn't so hard and I'm seeing the benefits
"so I think I'm going to go ahead and try Shakespeare now."
- Definitely and for me not knowing how to...
I mean I don't remember ever being taught
anything about composers or the time to do an art study.
It just wasn't something that I grew up with.
- Yeah, neither did I.
- And so I have utilize, especially with Shakespeare,
the Shakespeare's in Three Steps
the process that I know that you recommend
that's a tool that gives me...
It makes it accessible, it makes it doable.
And I feel like in my own personal homeschool,
I don't think without a valid resource to tell me what to do
I would not have even ventured there.
So I know I personally,
it's been a blessing to me to have those,
so thank you for doing those for sure.
- I'm glad. - And I say that for
other people that may be scared
and not sure how to do it or what to do,
that the enrichment guides that y'all produce
and the list that literally tells you word for word
what to do has given me the confidence to try it.
And then obviously if it's not a good fit
or it doesn't work then we've changed things,
but for the most part it has been a way
that has given me confidence.
Especially with Shakespeare, 'cause I did not like him.
- But now?
- I feel like he's friend.
- That's great, that's great.
And that's what enrichments can do for the whole family.
With the artists, with the composers, with the poets,
all those things that many of us didn't grow up with
we have an opportunity to make new friends now too.
- And that's what we wanna do for our children.
We want them to see that example in us
that things that maybe we don't know
or that we're scared to try.
We want them to see us putting forth the effort
to do something that maybe we're not 100% confident in
or that we've ever done before.
So I even think that's a valid point
for our children to see in us
that we're at least willing to try to do these things
that maybe aren't our comfort zone, to start with.
- And I think the Charlotte Mason Method,
the way she approaches those things
does make it-- - Are doable.
- Absolutely.
- You know, it's not a lot of my time.
- No.
- Multiple kids.
One kid old, young,
I mean it just, it fits so well.
And like you were saying,
just the family ties that are created
through the same subject.
You know, having the bond over the topic
or the subject.
You know, I feel like I've seen that in my children as well.
And I'm thankful for that.
- And then whenever they are watching something
and they see a Van Gogh or they see a Monet
or they see something else and they point it out
it's like, "Yes, victory!"
- Say it louder, say it louder.
(laughing)
- That works. - Tell everybody.
- It works.
- Did you hear that?
(both laughing)
- Good. - Awesome.
- How about you?
What questions do you have about enrichments?
What benefits have you seen from the enrichment subjects
that you have implemented into your homeschool?
Leave a comment and let us know.
And if you have other questions
that you would like us to discuss,
leave those in the comments too.
We want to make sure we get your questions answered.
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along with links to the enrichment lesson plans
that we were talking about.
Thanks for joining us, we'll see ya next time.